ABOUT EUPHEMISMS IN THE RUSSIAN AND SERBIAN PRESS

Abstract

This paper deals with euphemisms in Russian and Serbian. The selected material from the Russian and Serbian press is used to establish their formal-linguistic and lexical-semantic features. The contrastive method is applied in order to determine the similarities and differences in the process of euphemization in the two languages. The theoretical framework is represented by research on euphemisms, primarily by E. P. Senickina, as well as V. P. Moskvin, D. N. Shmeljov, L. P. Krisin et al. It has been established that the means for teaching euphemisms belong to all language levels, such as morphological, lexical, syntactic and stylistic means. Also, it has been established that euphemisms are often characteristic of social areas such as politics, diplomacy, wars and conflicts between states, crime and other illegal activities, issues related to sensitive categories of the population, such as the position of women, children, existentially endangered population, elderly population, etc. The analysis showed that the means for building euphemisms are very similar in Russian and Serbian and so are the thematic areas in which they are most often used. The differences occur mostly on the morphological level because the use of affixes, primarily the prefix ne-, in order to soften the meaning, which is more typical of the Russian language than of Serbian.